Writer-at-large

Likes/Dislikes

King Arthur’s scone mixes. Never had a bad one. I made the cinnamon-pecan mix for New Year’s breakfast and SOOO good. (I am not being compensated to write this–mostly because King Arthur has no idea who I am!).

The fact that December in my part of the world has been mild–no snow, hail, ice storms (and considering what’s been happening in the rest of the US), tornadoes, flooding, fires, blizzards or below freezing temps. I know we’re going to pay for this, but it was nice while it lasted.

Some new clothes to wear when I go back to work. There’s something about a new outfit or piece of jewelry that helps make it worthwhile to work in winter. Well, that at the paycheck (and the intrinsic value of work, and getting to teach some pretty neat people, and work with some really interesting folks). But new shiny stuff!

The fact that the library has a website with e-books. One free library card, and we can check out books without leaving the house! And it has a really nice selection that’s added to all the time. People whine about not having jet packs (really not a great idea for the average person!), but I think it’s spiffy to live in the future when I can get library books from home.

Things I’m not loving:

1). The %*#@& who thinks it’s fun to ride up and down the street on his ATV. I get why a person might want to ride an ATV–like on a trail or in a specially designed area with hills and obstacles. But what pleasure a person could get from riding on the flat, paved surface of our 25 MPH road, I don’t know. It’s irritating, loud and IRRITATING. We live in a rural area–go find someplace open and ride there! With permission!

2. Sports, sports, sports. Look, I’m glad that there are football games on New Year’s Day. And four or five other days a week. Not including all of the other sports. I’m glad that there are people who like them. But, for the love of Pete can the NEWS shut up about it? Apparently, some football person got a concussion–twenty minutes of the local news. There are bowl games–half an hour on CNN Headline. There are pre-pre-game shows, pre-game shows, the game, post-game shows, post-post-game shows, and then, again, the news has to cover the results. As does the paper. And I know what people who like sports are like–I have three brothers who follow them to various degrees (and some of them root for the Browns, poor things). But enough is enough.

3. Bigfoot shows. Okay, I don’t think there are Bigfoots (yes, spell check, I’m going with that plural and I’m not changing it), but assuming there were, the LAST thing that humans should be doing is going into the woods to harass them. They are endangered enough (what with almost surely not existing), and we don’t need to be tramping through their habitat and upsetting the balance of nature. Also, how many shows of people wandering around in the dark getting overly excited about non-existent things do we need as a society? Could’t one do the job? And each week they could “investigate” Bigfoot and the next ghosts, and the one after that chupacabras, or T-Rex or whatever? Do we really need eight hundred of these?